


to learn

by stonestars



Category: Inn Between (Podcast)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, i have a lot of feelings about velune
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonestars/pseuds/stonestars
Summary: The night after Fina is resurrected, neither Velune nor Meltyre can sleep.They talk about the future and Velune thinks about the past.
Relationships: Friar Velune & Meltyre
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	to learn

The night they bring Fina back, Velune wakes up gasping. 

The darkness presses heavy against their eyes. They can see through it, but that doesn’t help with the panic bubbling in their chest. 

Of course they would dream of that pit today.

They shift the blankets off themself, sitting up in their bed and raising their shaking hands to their face. 

Velune reminds themself to breathe. It’s air, not dirt, that fills their lungs.

In the darkness, they wonder if Pelor is still watching. For a moment, they feel the need to speak to him, to explain that they’re still not the person they were back then, that bringing Fina back was an act of love.

But they can’t find their voice. It’s as if, when they try to speak, the earth they’d just woken from fills their throat. 

All at once they feel the need to be anywhere but here, anywhere but alone. Pulling a blanket around their shoulders, they slip out of their room. 

Initially, they plan to just check on the others; peek their head in, make sure they’re sleeping soundly. 

A light in the opposite direction from the rooms draws them away. It’s back in the drawing room the group of them had come into when they had arrived.

They draw the blanket a bit tighter around their shoulders, steel themself to go back into the room they brought Fina back in, and head towards the light.

Meltyre sits in front of the fire, cross-legged with a book on his lap that he’s not reading. He doesn’t react when they push open the door, too busy staring into the flames.

“Meltyre?” they ask, softly, wincing when their voice comes out dry and cracked.

Meltyre jumps, his hand twitching in a familiar gesture as he turns around and preps a spell. Velune doesn’t blame him; all of them are jumpy. When he sees them, he relaxes. “O--oh, Friar. Did the light wake you?” 

Velune crosses the room slowly and sits in one of the armchairs by the fire. “No, I was already awake.” There’s a look on Meltyre’s face that worries them. “Are you alright, Meltyre?”

“I--” Meltyre sighs. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“That is… understandable. I apologize if seeing me--”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Meltyre corrects quickly. “That’s not it at all. I’m glad Fina’s back, really.” He sighs, looking back into the fire. “It just means I have to think about where I’m going now.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, it’s… my plan was to only take jobs when I needed to. To jump around, you know?”

“To not get attached to one party,” Velune finishes, realization dawning. 

Meltyre smiles, but he looks sad. “I don’t know how to choose. My sisters need me, but…”

“We do too,” Velune breathes. Some part of them is grateful for the distraction. This is something they can focus on, something besides darkness and crushing and being unable to breathe. They fold their hands across their lap. “Well. None of us would blame you, if you left.”

“I know.”

“You’d always be welcome back.”

“I know that too.” Meltyre runs a hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face. Without his hat he looks younger, somehow. Velune has to remind themself that  _ he’s only eighteen.  _ “I-- I know all of that, but that doesn’t change that… I like being with all of you. It’s nice to have people I trust.”

Velune watches him for a moment. They think back to the person they used to be. “If you could choose for yourself, which would you choose?” 

“It’s not that easy, Velune, I can’t just--”

“Hold on, Meltyre,” they scold gently. “If you knew that we would be safe without you,  _ and  _ you knew that your sisters were safe and taken care of, what would you choose to do. For you.” 

“I--” Meltyre begins, and then he stops. His eyebrows furrow.

Velune sits back and lets him think, knowing he’ll answer when he’s ready.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I’ve… never thought about it. What I would do for me. I think… I--I think I’d want to learn. I’d want to learn more about magic, but I wouldn’t want to just read. I’d want to learn by  _ doing  _ things, you know?”

For one terrible second, Velune sees their younger self, drawing their hood over their head as they walked into a necromantic cult in the pursuit of knowledge. 

But Meltyre isn’t them. Yes, he reminds them of themself; he has the same glint in his eye, the same passion for magic, the same desire to learn. 

He  _ isn’t _ them.

Velune had been inspired by pride, sure that their quest for knowledge was right. Meltyre learns because he loves it, and because he wants to protect. 

They have a lot to learn from him.

“That sounds like a wonderful path for you, Meltyre,” they say, and they mean it. 

“Yeah. It would be nice, if it could happen.” He hesitates. “Velune?”

“Yes, my son?”

Meltyre freezes for half a second, but just as Velune starts to worry that they shouldn’t have said that, his expression melts into a smile. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I have to talk to my sisters, and I have to figure out what path to take. It’s not a decision I can make right now.”

“Of course not, and you don’t have to.”

“Right,” Meltyre says with a nod. “Well, um-- until then? Could we talk about magic theory together? I’ve never known someone who studied it as much as you have. But--” he adds, quickly. “If you don’t want to, if it’s too many bad memories, we don’t have to.”

Velune surprises themself with how okay they are with the concept. “I would enjoy that, I think. But I  _ think _ you know more than me about magical theory. My areas of study were very specific.” 

“Yeah, but it all carries over! Like, here.” Meltyre holds his book out to them, thumb marking a page. “I’ve been studying interactions between seemingly opposed magical forces. Like… a wall of magical fire and a _Control Water_ spell. Or how different magical force spells interact. What would happen if two _Thunderwave_ s hit each other? The thing is, no one knows for sure. You can cast a spell a thousand times, but still not know how it would behave in the face of another kind of magic.” 

Velune takes the book, slipping their finger into the marked page. “It’s true, sometimes the effects produced when two different magical energies interact can be beyond either of them. Undead react so poorly to cleric magic because of that.”

Meltyre beams. “Exactly. The things I’m studying aren’t limited to wizard magic. I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.”

They can’t help but smile back. “Alright. I’ll read what you have here and we can discuss it in the morning.  _ You _ ,” they add, a bit firmly, “need sleep. If you think you can.”

“I… can. Thank you, Friar.”

“Any time.”

Meltyre goes to leave, but stops in the doorway. “Are you… okay, Velune?” he asks, so softly they can barely hear it.

They look down at the book he gave them. “I am better, now that Fina’s back.”

“But it wasn’t easy.”

“No, it wasn’t easy.”

“For what it’s worth?” Meltyre turns to face them and they tentatively catch his eye. “I’m really glad you saved her.”

Velune nods. “Goodnight, Meltyre. Thank you.”

“Goodnight,” Meltyre says, and then he’s gone.

The firelight flickering against the walls seems dimmer, somehow, once they’re alone. It’s still not easy to breathe, but it is easier.

For now, it’s enough. They open Meltyre’s book, run their fingers gently over the careful notes he’s left all through the margins. 

They wonder what it would be like to not be scared to learn. 

Then, with silent determination, they begin to read.


End file.
